Diary of a Geriatric Scarlet: November 24, 2050

Today I was butt dialed by an old friend listening to an old time folksy tune in his car. I received a 12 second ragtime voicemail.

The friend, not the song, reminded me of smooth jazz. The friend is an aficionado. When I speak of jazz, don't think I mean elevator music or lite.fm piped from somewhere in a dropleaf ceiling. I mean soulful melodies squeezed from bloodsoaked lungs. I mean old leather and girdles and gimlet bleary eyes.

Rock music is contrived you must admit: it's a skin-deep facade and brittle manic play acting. I favor the roll to be frank. It's the roll that makes the rock.

Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living. But I'm older than Socrates was when they killed him for speaking so. And I wonder if the microscopically examined life leaves behind ignorance just as boring. All that banging and plucking and ricocheting around on a road to nowhere.

I wish I knew how to ride jazz like a magic carpet to find the answers to questions bigger than human scurrying and clatter. I wonder if it's all one of those paradoxes where the harder you seek, the less likely you will find.

I lay back on a soft heap of deep blue pillows atop the chaise lounge in my bedroom. When the moon hangs in the sky above the city just right, Miles Davis can take hours.


NaBloPoMo November 2015

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